Connor Bedard's fire not enough to carry Blackhawks in loss to Predators

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Publicly, Blackhawks star Connor Bedard isn't shy about his competitiveness. Privately, his peers say he's even more competitive than he lets on publicly.

So while Bedard would never admit it, weeks of watching Team Canada’s Olympic run — which fell just short — while he sat around idly surely lit a fire underneath him.

That fire was obvious Thursday. In fact, it resembled a blazing inferno. On a night when many of his Hawks teammates looked rusty in a 4-2 loss to the Predators, Bedard singlehandedly generated the majority of his team’s offense.

He ripped his 24th goal off a savvy pass from Ryan Greene in the second period, broke in alone on Predators goalie Justus Annunen a full three additional times and hunted down loose pucks aggressively.

Seventeen of the Hawks’ 27 scoring chances occurred with Bedard on the ice. He also took faceoffs for the first time since his Dec. 12 shoulder injury, winning seven of 16.

“That’s the Connor we’ve seen lots of,” coach Jeff Blashill said.

However, the Hawks let a 2-1 lead in the third period slip away. Predators veteran Ryan O’Reilly outsmarted Hawks rookie Sam Rinzel to tip in the game-winning goal with 3:15 left.

Bedard, striking his usual public humble tone, praised Greene and Andre Burakovsky for setting him up for “five or six Grade A” chances.

“That’s on me to put one more of those in and maybe it’s a different game,” he said.

QB search

The Bears have found their franchise quarterback in Caleb Williams, but the Hawks are still searching for their quarterback on the power play.

They spread out reps between Rinzel, Artyom Levshunov, Kevin Korchinski and veteran Matt Grzelcyk during the past week of practices. Although Rinzel quarterbacked the top unit Thursday, that job is very much available to claim during the stretch run.

“We’ve got [defensemen] that have shown they’re capable of being power-play guys,” Blashill said. “We’d like to see one or two guys grab it and show they’re elite at it. There’s a difference there.”

Levshunov returned to the lineup Thursday and quarterbacked the second unit. He committed a costly turnover in the first period, but Blashill said he "got better as the game went along."

Entry fees

The Hawks also recently practiced a wider variety of power-play zone-entry strategies after their “one drop pass” approach went stale in January. They worked on an entry with two drop passes and another entry with zero, where the initial puck-carrier sneaks into the zone on his own.

Both new entries were on display during a successful third-period power play. A zero-drop entry by Frank Nazar created one extended zone sequence. A minute later, a two-drop entry back to Bedard created another extended sequence culminating in a Tyler Bertuzzi goal.

“I like that [two-drop entry] where I can get that much speed and come in,” Bedard said. “I feel pretty confident about it when I have those gaps.”

Extra attacker

The Hawks haven’t practiced six-on-five situations (with the goalie pulled) much this season, but they finally did Monday. They converted a couple times in practice, so it’ll be interesting to see if that makes a difference down the stretch. They’re the only NHL team with zero goals in those situations. They came up empty again Thursday.

Only one

Defenseman Wyatt Kaiser is the Hawks’ lone injured player. He has resumed skating individually as he works his way back from a Feb. 4 knee injury and could return to action next week.